You can use Microsoft Word to do some word-processing kung-fu in the cause of epub files, turning our plain-text archive stories back into fluidly wrapping word processed format.

Which stories can you convert? Ones that haven't yet been converted. There's been discussion about creating a thread over on the fanfic message boards about coordinating efforts. More on that when there's a decision.

Doranwen, who recommends using a free Windows program called Sigil to create the epub file, has prepared some tips that Bob has annotated.

Doranwen's original instructions are first, followed by Bob's slightly revised process.

1. Open the file on the Archive and copy all the text to the clipboard; paste it into Word.

2. Clear any extra lines at the very very top and very bottom.

3. Add @@@ in front of all but the first line of the heading info (author, title, rating, submitted–so in front of all those except for the author). This saves time breaking the lines later (I think it's actually faster this way) and keeps me from having to undo every time it tries to turn the e-mail addy into a link, lol.

4. Replace All - replace ^p^p^p with +++. (A few fics don't need this, but I usually do it anyway.)

5. Replace All - replace ^p^p with @@@.

6. Check the line endings of the mid-paragraph line returns to see if there's a space at the very end. If so, then do a Replace All to replace ^p with nothing (leave the bottom box blank). If there is not a space, then do a Replace All to replace ^p with a single space.

7. Replace @@@ with ^p. (I don't replace with two ^ps–^p^p–because epubs naturally space out paragraphs with some space in between them.)

8. Replace +++ with ^p^p.

9. Check over the heading briefly to see if there's any tidying up that needs to happen (eliminate or create any extra lines as needed, etc.).

10. Copy what's there and paste into Sigil.

11. Mark the title line with Heading 1 (recommended for titles), and mark the author line with Heading 2 (recommended for authors).

12. Edit meta info–put in the author name and title of the fic.

13. Do any chapter partitioning necessary, formatting the “Part One” or “Chapter 1” with Heading 3 (recommended for chapters). (I use Part One whenever I'm able to use the sections from the MBs, as that's how they refer to each part. I use Chapter 1 whenever I have to split the chapters off my own decisions.) While doing so, make sure all formatting is good, no glaring errors (missing or extra quotation marks, extra line spacing in the middle of someone's dialogue paragraph, etc.), etc. It should look better when you're done with it than it did before. :) (As a guide to partitioning, I'm recommending most files over 20 kb be split into two parts. Super Shorts are the only size of fic that really don't need any sort of splitting, though some very small shorts are perfectly fine without. Keep in mind how many pages the reader has to flick through to get to any one point in the story; too many, and it should be split further.)

14. Edit TOC to remove author & title from navigation–should only be the chapters left. (I've since decided to leave the title in if there are no chapter divisions at all, to allow a reader to jump back to the top of the fic quickly. This is a stylistic choice of the formatter, really.)

15. Save and it's ready to go! :) (Be sure to give it the filename that's used on the Archive. For instance, Anybody's Baby by Annie M has the filename anybodys.txt on the Archive, so it's named anybodys.epub here.)

1. Open the file on the Archive and do a save-as to the directory you want to work out of. This creates a .txt file with the correct name. (The name comes in handy later.)

2. Open the .txt file with MS Word ( I'm sure OO Writer would work but I don't know how to do the special substitutions.).

3. Clear any extra lines at the very very top and very bottom.

4. Add @@@ in front of all but the first line of the heading info (author, title, rating, submitted–so in front of all those except for the author).

5. Replace all Manual Line Breaks (^l) with Paragraph markers (^p). There are usually none present.

6. Replace all indents/tabs with @@@. There are usually none present. (I had to do this for Meet Me in Kansas City)

7. Replace All - replace ^p^p^p with +++.

8. Replace All - replace ^p^p with @@@.

9. Check the line endings of the mid-paragraph line returns to see if there's a space at the very end. If so, then do a Replace All to replace ^p with nothing (leave the bottom box blank). If there is not a space, then do a Replace All to replace ^p with a single space.

10. Replace @@@ with ^p.

11. Replace +++ with ^p^p.

12. Check over the heading briefly to see if there's any tidying up that needs to happen (eliminate or create any extra lines as needed, etc.).

13. Copy what's there and paste into Sigil.

14. Mark the title line with Heading 1 (recommended for titles), and mark the author line with Heading 2 (recommended for authors).

15. Edit meta info–put in the author name and title of the fic.

16. Do any chapter partitioning necessary, formatting the “Part One” or “Chapter 1” with Heading 3 (recommended for chapters). (I use Part One whenever I'm able to use the sections from the MBs, as that's how they refer to each part. I use Chapter 1 whenever I have to split the chapters off my own decisions.) While doing so, make sure all formatting is good, no glaring errors (missing or extra quotation marks, extra line spacing in the middle of someone's dialogue paragraph, etc.), etc.

Note on Chapter partitioning. There are several steps here.

a) If necessary, put in the word “Part x” or “Chapter. If I have to add them, I am putting them every 30 to 40K bytes or 7 to 8K words. However, the flow of the story must be considered. Skip this step if the work is already partitioned. When possible, I will try to ask the author before I split anything.

b) Once the markers are in place, highlight them using Heading 3

c) Just above each marker, insert a chapter break. This is what actually breaks the file into manageable sized pieces.

17. Edit TOC to remove author from navigation. I like to leave in the top title to allow the person to get back to the very top. I also leave in markers for authors notes and the like. This is VERY much a matter of what you think looks good. I like the story name to show up in the TOC even for short stories.

18. Save as an epub using the name in the original txt file as a guide. There will now be two files, the XYZ.txt and an XYZ.epub Other than the txt vs epub, the names should be exactly the same.